40 steps to a safer laboratory

1. Have a written health, safety, and environmental affairs (HS&E) policy statement.

2. Organize a departmental HS&E committee of employees, management, faculty, staff, and students which will meet regularly to discuss HS&E issues.

3. Develop an HS&E orientation for all new employees and students.

4. Encourage employees and students to care about their health and safety and that of others.

5. Involve every employee and student in some aspect of the safety program and give each specific responsibilities.

6. Provide incentives to employees and students for safety performance.

7. Require all employees to read the appropriate safety manual. Require students to read the district’s laboratory safety rules. Have both groups sign a statement that they have done so, understand the contents, and agree to follow the procedures and practices. Keep these statements on file in the department office.

9. Make learning how to be safe an integral and important part of science education, your work, and your life.

10. Schedule regular departmental safety meetings for all students and employees to discuss the results of inspections and aspects of laboratory safety.

11. Require every prelab/pre-experiment discussion to include consideration of the health and safety aspects.

12. Forbid working alone in any laboratory and working without prior knowledge of a staff member.

13. Don’t allow experiments to run unattended unless they are fail-safe.

14. When conducting experiments with hazards or potential hazards, ask yourself these questions: What are the hazards? What are the worst possible things that could go wrong? How will I deal with them? What are the prudent practices, protective facilities and equipment necessary to minimize the risk of exposure to the hazards?

15. Require that all accidents be reported, evaluated by the departmental safety committee, and discussed at departmental safety meetings.

16. Extend the safety program beyond the laboratory to the automobile and the home.

17. Allow only minimum amounts of flammable liquids in each laboratory.

26. Develop specific work practices for individual experiments, such as those that should be conducted only in a ventilated hood or involve particularly hazardous chemicals. When possible, most hazardous experiments should be done in a hood.

Steps requiring moderate expense

27. Allocate a portion of the departmental budget to safety.

28. Require the use of appropriate eye protection at all times in laboratories and areas where chemicals are transported.